son is forced to admit that one of his main case studies, Y ou Tube, "has so far failed to make any money for Google." Why is that? Because of the very prin- ciples of Free that Anderson so energeti- cally celebrates. When you let people up- load and download as manyvideos as they want, lots of them will take you up on the offer. That's the magic ofF ree psychology: an estimated seventy-five billion videos will be served up by Y ouTube this year. Although the magic of Free technology means that the cost of serving up each video is "close enough to free to round down," "close enough to freè' multiplied by seventy-five billion is still a very large num- ber. A recent report by Credit Suisse esti- mates that You Tube's bandwidth costs in 2009 will be three hundred and sixty mil- lion dollars. In the case of You Tube, the effects of technological Free and psycho- logical Free work against each other. So how does You Tube bring in reve- nue? Well, it tries to sell advertisements alongside its videos. The problem is that the videos attracted by psychological Free-pirated material, cat videos, and other forms of user-generated content- are not the sort of thing that advertisers want to be associated with. In order to sell advertising, Y ou Tube has had to buy the rights to professionally produced content, such as television shows and movies. Credit Suisse put the cost of those li- censes in 2009 at roughly two hundred and sixty million dollars. For Anderson, You Tube illustrates the principle that Free removes the necessity of aesthetic judgment. (As he puts it, You Tube proves that "crap is in the eye of the beholder.") But, in order to make money, YouTube has been obliged to pay for programs that aren't crap. To recap: You Tube is a great example of Free, except that Free technol- ogy ends up not being Free because of the way consumers respond to Free, fatally compromising You Tube's ability to make money around Free, and forcing it to re- treat from the "abundance thinking" that lies at the heart of Free. Credit Suisse es- timates that Y ou Tube will lose close to half a billion dollars this year. If it were a bank, it would be eligible for T ARP funds. A nderson begins the second part of his book by quoting Lewis Strauss, the former head of the Atomic Energy Commission, who famously pre- dicted in the mid-nineteen-fifties that THE NéWYORKER ' 0 N L I N E r new yorker. com - ------ FOLLOW US ONLINE face book. com/ newyorker twitter.com/N ew Yorker DotCom -- AUDIO EDITION AVAILABLE AT AUDIBLE.COM/NEWYORKER ADVERTISEMENT ----- &amp;. · ó c,o$1(,øa. a.'Ø- on the town JI...mr . , _ , f ... ",w.- , .Þ-ø 1 .' r<""'" {" ,'.'-- --' f"!"i;'" BE THE FIRST TO HEAR ABOUT EVENTS, PROMOTIONS, AND SPECIAL OFFERS FROM NEW YORKER ADVERTISERS. . ": -- -- at&amp;t Go Where t h Th" e Wild ngs Arel Discover the 1:; . with L . aln forest lndblad Exp expert N editions' aturalist log on now f s. Call or select d or up to 25% OFF eparture dates. AT&amp;T offers the best coverage worldwide of any U.S. provider. With more phones that work in more places, enjoy voice coverage in more than 215 countries and use data in more than 170. For more information, visit att.com/global. , SEE YOUR TRAVEL AGENT OR CALL . r I-800-EXPEDITION FOR A FREE BROCHURE &amp; DVD. www.EXPEDITIONS.com , @2009 AT&amp;T Intellectual Property, Service provided by AT&amp;T Mobility. All rights reserved. AT&amp;T, the AT&amp;T logo, and all other marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&amp;T Intellectual Property and/or AT&amp;T affiliated companies, All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners, o NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Lindblad Expeditions THE NEW YORKER, JULY 6 &amp; 13,2009 83